The visit started off great, as our luck with honeymoon upgrades continued. We stayed in THE Maria Kamp suite in the very fancy Kamp Hotel and had a nice bottle of champagne waiting for us upon arrival - thanks Starwood! All those nights in Hartford are starting to pay off...
We realized pretty quickly that Helsinki is different from the other Nordic cities we'd visited - the city moves at a notably slower pace, there are significantly fewer bikes...and even fewer blondes. During our time there, the city definitely grew on us. The food was great, the people were friendly, and the shift back to Euros meant significantly less mental math.
Our obligatory city shot!
Helsinki also marked an exciting milestone on our trip - our first guests! Tiffany (Alexis's sister) and Fredrik (our Copenhagen informant) were conveniently on a business trip corresponding with our visit. As is typical with all Tiff/Alexis reunions, the time was filled with fancy cocktails, sushi, and McDonald's ice cream.
Post-work cocktails (well, post-work for half the group...)
If you come visit us, you get your picture in the blog!
While we did get to the major tourist attractions, we also adopted the easygoing nature of the city and spent a decent amount of time sitting in parks, reading, eating ice cream, and just relaxing. These seemed to be pretty popular activities among the locals, and when that's the way of life, we certainly want to fit in!
As for the sights, we spent an afternoon exploring the Suomenlinna Fortress. Built in 1748, this military island is an UNESCO World Heritage site and over the course of its history has served in the defense of Russia, Sweden, and Finland.
In other tourist activities, we visited:
The site of the 1952 summer Olympic Games and current home of the Finnish national soccer team:
The obvious highlight of Alexis's trip so far - a visit to the Olympic pool complex:
The Lutheran cathedral:
And an interesting sculpture along the harbor that would make Will Johnston proud:
After a brief jaunt up to the North (post to come), we spent a final night in Helsinki. In what was likely two firsts at the Kamp Hotel suite bathroom, we took care of some domestic activities...hand washing our clothes in the bathtub (thanks Caitlin and Trey for our nifty hand washing device!):
And giving Mike a haircut...sorry Erica! Before:
After:
Not bad for Alexis' first cut, but hoping to improve in the coming months. Then it was time to stake out a spot for the Pats game.
Missing game one (as well as Three Sheets and buffalo chicken nachos) was proclaimed to be "the saddest moment of the trip so far," but even with the Pats' poor performance, we got through it and Mike has begun research on where to watch game two in Riga this coming weekend.
Go Pats! (how do you say that in Finnish?!)
Mike found Tuukka!
That's all from Helsinki - more to come shortly (we hope!) from our adventure up to the (very mild) Arctic Circle and then onto the Baltics!
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